Leading eye disease specialist to address local health professionals

A world expert on eye diseases will present the 2013 Sarah Smith Oration on Tuesday 24 September at Campbelltown Hospital Auditorium.

Professor Hugh Taylor, Harold Mitchell Professor of Indigenous Eye Health at the University of Melbourne has a particular interest in Trachoma – an infectious bacterial disease which can cause blindness.

Trachoma is still a major health problem for many Indigenous Australians says organiser of the Sarah Smith Oration, Professor John Whitehall, Chair of Paediatrics in the UWS School of Medicine.

"The 2013 Sarah Smith Oration is a unique opportunity for the health professionals from across the region to hear from one of the world's foremost experts on eye disease," says Professor Whitehall.

"Professor Taylor will review the history of Trachoma, the latest health programs actively controlling the disease and the great challenges that remain." 

Professor Taylor has written 30 books and reports including a recent one on Trachoma, and more than 600 scientific papers, and has received international recognition for his work," says Professor Whitehall.

Professor Taylor was the founding Director of the Centre for Eye Research, Australia, and Professor of Ophthalmology at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore in the USA.

The Sarah Smith Oration is named in honour of the first recorded death of a child born and raised in the Macarthur region. Sarah Smith was born in 1815 at Airds and died on 16 September 1823. Her father was a convict who settled in Camden at the turn of the 19th century. The Oration seeks to review the progress of paediatrics and the challenges that still confront.

UWS School of Medicine students and staff, local medical professionals and Aboriginal Health professionals are among the many from across the Macarthur region who are expected to attend this year's Oration.

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